League Two Round-Up: Late Drama, Three Red Cards and Winning Returns

League Two's opening day did not bother easing anyone in. At Crawley, ten men beat nine with a header in the fifth minute of stoppage time after an afternoon that produced three red cards, one of them for throwing the ball at an opponent. At York, a sell-out crowd watched their club's first English Football League game for a decade turn on a debutant's brace. And at Blundell Park, Grimsby Town opened with the kind of tight, argued-over 1-0 that tends to be worth the same three points as a stroll. Ten winners, two draws, and a division already behaving exactly like itself.

The shape of the round

Walsall lead the first table of the season from Newport County, both having won 3-0, with Barnet, Oldham, Tranmere, York, Cheltenham, Crewe, Fleetwood and Grimsby completing the set of opening-day winners. Accrington and Colchester shared four goals, Northampton and Swindon shared none. At the bottom sit Gillingham and Rochdale, both beaten 3-0, Rochdale on the road at Newport and Gillingham cruelly in front of their own supporters: the hosts hit the woodwork three times at Priestfield and still lost by three.

The late-goal disease that infected the Championship and League One this weekend is in League Two as well. Yahya Bamba struck in the first minute of stoppage time at Newport, Aaron Pressley in the sixth at Gillingham, Josh March in the fifth at Crawley. If there is a theme to English football's opening weekend across three divisions, it is that no lead and no scoreline is finished until the referee says so.

Grimsby 1-0 Exeter: the linesman's eye settles Blundell Park

Grimsby Town's winning start came by the narrowest measurement available. Harvey Rodgers got on the end of a Charles Vernam corner in the 35th minute and the linesman called the ball over the line before it was cleared. That was the afternoon's only goal, and 7,483 at Blundell Park spent the rest of it being reminded why 1-0 is the least relaxing scoreline in football.

The Mariners deserved the margin and arguably more. They out-shot newly-relegated Exeter 21 to 8, and were inches from a second when Jake Doyle-Hayes met another Vernam cross with a header that bounced just wide of the far post. At the other end the day carried a subplot: Christy Pym, the former Grecians goalkeeper, kept out his old club, stretching to tip over the bar after Exeter skipper Jack Fitzwater got on the end of a corner and then surviving a late scare when he palmed a cross into the path of Jayden Wareham, who fired over from close range in the last minute. Jack Bycroft's reaction save from Jamie Walker's deflected effort kept Exeter alive longer than the pattern of the game said they should have been. David Artell's post-match verdict, via the BBC's clip, was modest in the way winning managers can afford: "I thought we deserved the win." Matt Taylor's was not: "There were parts of that I didn't like."

Crawley 0-1 Crewe: nine against ten, settled at the death

The strangest game of the day produced the round's headline: three red cards and a stoppage-time winner. Crawley lost Kellan Gordon six minutes after half-time, a straight red for violent conduct in an off-the-ball incident involving Joe White. They were down to nine when Malcolm Ebiowei, on his Crawley league debut, was sent off for throwing the ball at Calum Agius. Crewe then lost their captain Mickey Demetriou late on for a second bookable offence, and referee Andrew Humphries had a full card of his own.

The game ran deep into added time before it found a result: Joel Tabiner crossed and Josh March, an 11-goal man for Crewe last season, headed home in the fifth minute of stoppage time. Ten beat nine. Crawley's afternoon had gone wrong early even before the cards, with keeper Vito Mannone, formerly of Arsenal and Sunderland, twice needing treatment after heavy collisions inside 18 minutes. Lee Bell's caption on the BBC clip covered it all: "A crazy game of football."

York 3-2 Bristol Rovers: a decade's wait, repaid with interest

York City's first EFL match since May 2016 had everything the ten years of waiting demanded. A raucous sell-out crowd of 8,156 at the LNER Community Stadium was quietened on the half-hour when Bristol Rovers scored from their first attack through Clinton Mola. The response was emphatic: two goals in four second-half minutes, Alex Newby turning in Joe Grey's low cross in the 60th and Harry Boyes, a summer signing from Southend, scoring in the 63rd.

Rovers levelled in the 78th from the spot, Tommy Leigh sending Alfie McNally the wrong way after Morgan Williams was controversially penalised for a shove. It lasted two minutes. Boyes headed in from a yard after Newby nodded down Ollie Banks' deep cross, a debut brace and the first EFL goals of his career. Scott Lindsey's caption said his side "gave fans something to sing about"; Steve Evans put Rovers' afternoon down to "individual errors for each of the goals". York had 70.3% of the ball on their return. They looked like they had never been away.

Gillingham 0-3 Walsall: cruelty, then arithmetic

For 80 minutes Priestfield watched a game Gillingham could easily have led. James Brophy and Will Goodwin struck the bar, the hosts hit the woodwork three times in all, and Walsall keeper Jed Ward made a string of fine saves to deny Ronan Hale. Then Isaac Moore, a 20-year-old Coventry loanee, pounced with a sweet strike in the 81st minute, former Crewe defender James Connolly tapped in from a corner in the 89th, and Aaron Pressley headed a third from Courtney Clarke's cross in the sixth minute of added time. Gareth Ainsworth's caption did not spare his side: "You can't defend like that at the end." The table's first edition has Walsall top of the pile and Gillingham 23rd, which is what happens when the woodwork counts for nothing.

The rest of the opening day

Newport 3-0 Rochdale

Hayden Mullins' first league game in charge went as well as a home debut can: Kyle Cameron opened in the 18th minute, Shaquille Gwengwe tapped home on his Football League debut from a sumptuous Harrison Biggins cross, and Yahya Bamba found the top corner for a third in stoppage time. Newport did it with 32.4% possession, and newly-promoted Rochdale, back in the Football League, did not manage a shot on target and finished with ten men after Bryant Bilongo's second yellow.

Oldham 2-0 Port Vale

Calum Kavanagh's second-half double did the scoring, first racing clear from Ollie Norburn's quickly taken free-kick, then converting when Mike Fondop's acrobatic overhead kick was flying wide and became a pass. The quieter story is in goal: Matt Hudson set a club record last season with 19 clean sheets and started this campaign with another shutout. Relegated Port Vale, with Robbie Williams as their new shirt sponsor, rarely threatened him.

Accrington 2-2 Colchester

Ellis Iandolo headed Colchester ahead from a Jack Payne free-kick, and Charlie Caton answered twice for Accrington, a far-corner header from Shaun Whalley's cross and a second in first-half added time. The equaliser in the 60th minute belonged to physics rather than design: Rob Hunt's high cross dipped straight into the top corner. Accrington had 20 shots to Colchester's seven and left with the same single point.

Barnet 3-1 Salford

Oisin Gallagher fired his first goal for the club into the roof of the net, Charlie Lakin punished a defensive lapse before half-time, and Kabongo Tshimanga added the third in the 87th. Salford's reply, an Adebola Oluwo header in the 90th, was a consolation, and Kyrell Malcolm hit the post even later. Dean Brennan reckoned his side "should have won by four or five goals"; Peter Cklamovski's caption on the other side of that scoreline admitted embarrassment.

Cheltenham 2-1 Rotherham

Rotherham had 19 shots to Cheltenham's six and lost. Charlie McCann slotted the opener after half an hour, Jili Buyabu levelled in the 62nd, and then Jake Evans, a Leicester loanee who turns 18 on Friday, came off the bench and sealed it on debut with a finish inside the bottom left corner from outside the box. Alex Bruce's one-word caption, "disappointed", did the work of a paragraph.

Chesterfield 0-1 Fleetwood

Veteran striker Ched Evans decided this one in the 35th minute with an audacious lob from around 30 yards, against one of his former clubs. Chesterfield had 66.4% of the ball, had also lost to Fleetwood in the Carabao Cup the week before, and could not force the equaliser their possession kept promising.

Tranmere 2-0 Shrewsbury

Jordan Davies forced home his first league goal for the club from Bobby Faulkner's knock-down in the 35th minute, and Charlie Whitaker weaved through the Shrewsbury defence to finish emphatically from 18 yards in the 63rd. Shrewsbury out-shot Tranmere 15 to 7 and had a George Lloyd effort cleared off the line, which is the sort of line that keeps appearing under losing teams this weekend.

Northampton 0-0 Swindon

The round's quiet fixture. Northampton controlled long stretches at Sixfields, took ten corners to Swindon's one, and could not turn any of it into a goal; Swindon did not manage a shot on target, and Northampton almost snatched it in stoppage time when substitute Harvey Saunders got in behind the defence, only to drag his effort wide. Chris Hogg's caption settled for the foundation: "We've got to be hard to beat."

What the first table says

Walsall and Newport lead on goal difference, York and Grimsby both sit in the opening top ten with three points, and newly-relegated Port Vale and Exeter were beaten at Oldham and Grimsby respectively. One Saturday proves nothing, but it sets tables, and in this division the difference between a promotion place and mid-table is usually decided by exactly the kind of one-goal afternoons that Grimsby, Crewe and Fleetwood just banked.

Sources: BBC Sport, including PA Media match reports.